Lerner S. - Kids who think outside the box (2005)(en)

70	Kids WHO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

■Doug Moss

Publisher, Environmentalist

oug Moss is a man devoted to the environment. Doug DMoss is a businessman. It takes these two qualities to make an environmental publication a success. Doug Moss is the founder, publisher, and executive editor of E/The Environmental Magazine, a fifteen-year-old national bimonthly environmental magazine, published in Norwalk, Connecticut, by the not-for-profit Earth Action Network, Inc., which he also founded.

Earth Action Network also publishes books, operates the environmental Web site emagazine.com, and publishes and distributes EarthTalk, a weekly question-and-answer column on environmental issues which runs on MSNBC.com, other Web sites, and in 250 U.S. and Canadian newspapers. Doug previously cofounded The Animals’ Agenda, a bimonthly animal protection magazine, serving as an editor and its first publisher from 1979 until 1988.

He is clearly dedicated to the preservation of our environment, which he has made his life’s work, but the businessman in him knows that to pursue this passion, he must keep his eye on the ball—and the bottom line.

LIVING LEGENDS AND EMINENT ACHIEVERS

71

Doug Moss

Ambition and Perseverance

I’ve always “aimed high” in the goals I’ve set for myself, and I don’t give up easily.

f I had to pick two words that sum up why I was able to Iachieve in life they would be ambition and perseverance. I’ve always “aimed high” in the goals I’ve set for myself, and I don’t give up easily. In the process, I improve my skills at whatever I’m attempting to do.

My childhood baseball hero, Mickey Mantle, was probably my biggest inspiration, as were the Beatles. Mantle had a bone disease and a history of injuries in one of his legs such that he had to completely wrap his knee in tape before every game. Nonetheless, despite this handicap, he went on to become one of baseball’s all-time greatest players and the idol of many because he was also a very modest and likable person. And the Beatles changed popular music forever by not being afraid to be different and by continually working to improve themselves and to try new things along the way.

Because of Mickey Mantle’s inspiration, I took up baseball myself and even learned to switch-hit as he did. Because of the Beatles, I taught myself guitar and piano, and I have since written about 25 original melodies myself. My mother also deserves credit. A musician and hard worker herself, she encouraged me to be active and entrepreneurial at the things I enjoyed. As a youngster I had a paper route and also mowed my neighbors’ lawns to earn money, while playing throughout my younger years in Little League and Babe Ruth League, and also playing cello in the orchestra.

Source: Printed with permission from Doug Moss, Norwalk, Connecticut.

72	Kids WHO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

During the 15 years that I’ve been publishing E/The Environmental Magazine, which is nonprofit and relies on foundation grants for support, I have been the key person responsible for raising money. It’s been an uphill battle, and I joke with my coworkers at times that I could “wallpaper the whole office” with just the stacks of rejection letters I have in my files. But that has never deterred me. It sounds funny, but sometimes when a “No” arrives in the mail from a foundation from whom I’ve asked for a grant, it just energizes me to figure out how to get a “Yes” from them next time. I’m quite passionate about the environment and also about the need for our media to serve us properly.

Foundations have not traditionally supported media, preferring instead to fund projects that have clear and measurable short-term consequences, like giving money to build a nature center, where they can see the results of the money they spent standing there right in front of them. But many of the environmental issues we fight for, and the efforts needed to win those fights, are less tangible than that, though still very important—and a magazine like E can do a lot to educate people, both young and old, about the importance of safeguarding the environment. I think after years of persevering with the foundations that provide the funding—while at the same time putting out a well-written magazine that is a team effort—I’ve successfully persuaded them to agree.

I grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut, catching frogs and fishing in local ponds, but I would trace my environmentalism to an event that occurred much later. One day, while living in New Haven, Connecticut, after graduating with a degree in marketing from Babson College in 1974, I watched a TV report about the clubbing of baby harp seals in Newfoundland, Canada (that seal hunt has now resumed in a big way in 2004). I was outraged at what I saw, and my first impulse was to run to the phone to call the TV station to com-

LIVING LEGENDS AND EMINENT ACHIEVERS

73

plain that they were televising this. I didn’t make the call, realizing that the TV station was only the messenger, not the one killing seals. Coincidentally, a few days later I saw some people in downtown New Haven demonstrating against wearing fur, so I joined the local antifur group. I began to get more and more involved and, in the process, I met a whole community of people who shared my concerns about animals and the environment. I started to spend my free time on such activities as gathering signatures on petitions, organizing events, and working on newsletters.

In 1979, I left the Burroughs Corporation, with which I got a job after college, and started my own company, Douglas Forms. I wanted to “be my own boss” and decided to “take the plunge” now that I knew the business forms field well. In 2004 Douglas Forms celebrated its 25th anniversary. As it turned out, most of my customers were magazine publishers, and I learned a lot from them about the business of magazine publishing. Soon a few of my friends and I decided to publish an animal rights magazine. In late 1979 the first issue of The Animals’ Agenda appeared.

After nine years of publishing The Animals’ Agenda, I decided that, while I still supported animal rights concerns, my interests were broadening to include other related concerns. Global warming, medical waste, ozone depletion and other issues gave me and my wife, Deborah, the idea to try our hand at a new nonprofit magazine. I left The Animals’ Agenda and launched a new, independent magazine that would focus on a broad range of environmental issues.

Work began on E/The Environmental Magazine during the “Greenhouse Summer” of 1988, amid reports of medical waste washing up on New Jersey shores, fires in Yellowstone Park, and growing public interest in the environment. E debuted—after 18 months of planning, research, and networking with the environmental community—in January 1990, in

74	Kids WHO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

the wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster and on the eve of the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day, just as people were dubbing the 1990s, “the environmental decade.”

All of this has taught me that it’s important to “leave no stone unturned” in considering the unlimited opportunities to make the most of even just one project, such as a magazine whose reach can be multiplied exponentially through creative thinking.

LIVING LEGENDS AND EMINENT ACHIEVERS

75

■Jack J. Cambria

New York Police Department Hostage Negotiator

n New York City, it’s not uncommon to turn on the news Iand see an interview with Lt. Jack Cambria, the Commanding Officer of the NYPD’s Hostage Negotiation Team. His demeanor is reserved and modest, even though his job is demanding, high performance, high stress, and critical to saving lives. His job is so compelling and riveting that CBS revolved their program “48 Hours” around him and his competent team.

Cambria is a 22-year veteran of the New York Police Department. Today he coordinates the efforts of one hundred negotiators, who respond to all hostage and related situations throughout the city. He is responsible for the training and certification of new negotiators and the retraining of current negotiators. He conducts in-service training for newly promoted captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and many outside law enforcement agencies. He was temporarily reassigned back to the Emergency Service Unit, where he had served for 16 years, for the three months following the attack on the World Trade Center to assist in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero.

He earned his Bachelor and Associate of Science degrees in Criminal Justice from the State University of New York, Empire State College and is currently working toward a Masters Degree in Criminal Justice from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York.

76	Kids WHO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

Jack J. Cambria

Never Give Up

If you are thrown seven times, you must get up eight.

s I was growing up, the thought of becoming a New York ACity police officer never crossed my mind. In my teen years I worked at many odd jobs, starting in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park ice-skating rink and carousel. I ended up a truck driver for a plumbing supply company, also in Brooklyn. I remember taking a small amount of pride in that position, since I had to work hard to earn the class-3 driver’s license required to drive the truck. But as time went on, the work became less and less interesting and my employment status was at the mercy of the store staying in business. I decided to look for something more secure and took several civil service exams, including tests for police officer, firefighter, sanitation worker, and other jobs. When I received the letter from the police department indicating that I had passed its entrance exam, I realized that it was the first time I had a potential career to be zealous about.

In my 21 years with the police department, I have held a host of assignments, each one more challenging than the former. My work has ranged from, as a young policeman, performing precinct foot and radio car patrol to plainclothes anticrime assignments. I spent 16 exciting years with the Emergency Service Unit (ESU), which is a tactical and rescue unit of the NYPD. It was during my time in ESU that I would find myself perched atop various New York City landmarks, such as the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge, in attempts to rescue suicidal individuals and helping end their unremitting emotional pain. I served as a police officer, sergeant, and lieutenant within various precincts

Source: Printed with permission from Jack J. Cambria.

LIVING LEGENDS AND EMINENT ACHIEVERS

77

and in ESU and always approached my work with compassion and enthusiasm. The road to realizing my own personal pinnacle of success did not come easily, but rather, was achieved through hard work and perseverance. Reaching the rank of lieutenant was only realized after taking two sergeant and two lieutenant exams, which are given approximately five years apart. I think if I had been discouraged after failing my first sergeant’s test, I would never have had the job I now hold and my life would have been drastically different.

My current, and probably my last, assignment in the police department, is as commanding officer of the Hostage Negotiation Team. Hostage negotiators are detectives who are asked to attempt to resolve high-crisis situations using only their words, thereby preventing a tactical deployment of the police into a hostile environment. It is always better and safer to have dangerous individuals come out to us, than to go in after them. Complicated and interpersonal maneuverings are employed in attempting to resolve these types of situations.

Perhaps the most arduous test of my fortitude came on September 11, 2001. I first arrived at the World Trade Center some 30 minutes after the South Tower had fallen, and I remained there until late November, spending an average of 16 hours a day at the site to assist in the rescue and then recovery effort. My experiences while assigned at Ground Zero will be forever etched in my mind. Fourteen of the victims were police officers assigned to ESU, whom I had the privilege of personally serving with over the years. I also lost some very close personal friends that day.

Several years ago, I was involved in martial arts training, and I learned a very simple philosophy, which is so easily applied to life: If you are thrown seven times, you must get up eight. I think if we let ourselves be discouraged by life’s various obstacles, we would not follow our dreams in pursuit of our personal successes.

78	Kids WHO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

■Mark Norell

Paleontologist

ark Norell’s work has taken him around the globe, ever Msince he began going on scientific expeditions at the age of 14. His life’s work—exploring for dinosaurs—has taken him on 20 international expeditions. In the last few years, he has worked actively in Patagonia, Cuba, the Chilean Andes, the Sahara, West Africa, and Mongolia. In 1989, Dr. Norell accepted a curatorial position at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and he is now chairman and curator of its Division of Paleontology.

According to the museum’s Web site, Norell’s accomplishments include the discovery of the richest Cretaceous fossil locality in the world, the first embryo of a theropod dinosaur, and the first indication of a dinosaur nesting on a clutch of eggs like a bird.

His work regularly appears in major scientific journals (including cover stories in Science and Nature), and he was cited by Time magazine for one of the 10 most significant science stories of 1994 and 1996, and in 1993, 1994, and 1996 as the author of one of Discover magazine’s top 50 science stories of the year.

Between expeditions and the demands of a scientific career, Dr. Norell lectures to the general public and writes books and articles for diverse audiences. The second edition of Discovering Dinosaurs won Scientific American’s Young Readers Book of the Year Award.

LIVING LEGENDS AND EMINENT ACHIEVERS

79

Mark Norell

Work Hard, Play Hard,Think Hard, Finish Stuff

People should learn as much about as many different things as possible. . . .

have always been very fortunate. I was raised in suburban ILos Angeles when dairy farms and orange groves were a short bike ride away—and the beach was close enough that the sand and waves were frequently visited. Such an environment was conducive to a kid interested in science and at home outdoors. There were fossils to be found, insects to be captured, and birds and gophers to be massacred. I had tolerant and supportive parents. So tolerant that I convinced them to carry large plastic garbage bags in the car trunk on family outings so I could harvest interesting road kill for my anatomical collection.

School was of interest to me and because of this it always seemed easy. I had some excellent if not memorable teachers. My greatest education, however, came through the science programs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. There, I was exposed to real scientists working on projects around the globe. I was able to volunteer in different departments and accompany field trips to the California deserts and Mexico to collect mammals and reptiles, survey whale populations and, most of all, collect fossils. This was different from the science that I was taught in school. This sort of science was creative and fun. Since this was the early 1970s, the scientists I got to know were not stereotypical nerd-scientists, but an inspired, fun-loving tribe.

In college my mind was made up. I wanted to pursue science as a career. I continued to accompany fossil collecting

Source: Printed with permission from Mark Norell.